Brian, winner of London Tourist Board’s Guide of the Year award, has created Mysterious London And The Da Vinci Code, a tourist trail through the hokum of Dan Brown’s fiction, retracing the footsteps of Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu, Brown’s tenderloin heroes, played by Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou in the spin-off movie.
But Brian’s walk, (which also takes in the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, with a ride on London’s Underground for good measure), doubles up as a riveting dig through the murky entrails of medieval Christian England.
Today there are 10 of us: two Australians, three Americans, two Israelis, a Bulgarian and a woman who says she’s “Uranian” (yes, they are even here from Uranus), keen to snoop. I’d been hoping for rain, for some gothic gloom, a fanfare of thunder, a crack of lightning, but alas the Thames glitters gold in the afternoon sunlight, the wrong kind of alchemy altogether.
At 2pm sharp, Brian meets us at Temple tube and whisks us into the wind-blown shade of Embankment Gardens. “Dan Brown has sold 45 million copies of the book,” (the figure is closer to 80 million). “It has been taken very seriously by the Vatican who appointed the Bishop of Genoa to dispel its various ‘lies and misrepresentations’.” Brian’s eyebrows dart; he rolls the phrase round his mouth like a connoisseur of ecclesiastical paranoia.
Are we initiated, he asks? Have we seen the movie? Read the novel? It isn’t essential, and it won’t get you any Brownie points (my pun) – but it certainly helps. “The Knights Templar feature hugely in the book. From their inception they were sponsored by the Pope. Wherever they went they built circular churches, based on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.” You sense that a circular church is in the offing— a “world of legend, sorcery and witchcraft” as Dan Brown has it.
“And here it is,” says Brian, weaving us through the paved purlieu of riverside courtyards, under the branches of spiked wintry trees, past mantled gaslights, and into the deep, secluded reek of outlandish wealth: the Inns of Court, a den of barristers, of privilege, Aston Martins, Ferraris, and Mercs. And the Templar’s Church.
“To this very door came Robert and Sophie in the early hours of the morning, along with Leigh Teabing, their accomplice, to find the burial place of a knight ... Let’s see what they found.”
Inside, away from upbeat splashes of stained-glass light, beneath the leery gaze of gargoyles, (heavily featured in the movie to accentuate the menace), lie sombre effigies of nine Templars. “Brown suggests there should be a tenth.” Brian shakes his head. “There never was.”
As if on cue, the church’s organ explodes the silence, something by Bach, like a movie soundtrack, flashing before us the scary kidnap scene, the gunfire, Silas, the red-eyed albino monk from Opus Dei pressing his knife to Sophie’s throat, Leigh Teabing bundled into a getaway car. An attempt to steal the keystone which holds the map to the Holy Grail.
Brian’s amusement drowns the racket: “Ah monks with red eyes, dressed in white habits. We see them round here all the time.” As the walk winds on, between high bricked chambers, chasing Robert and Sophie’s escape route, he peppers us too with historical context concerning the early Christian church, the sacred role of Mary Magdalene whose sarcophagus, Dan Brown believes, culminates the hunt for the Holy Grail.
We absorb odd facts: how the Jolly Roger got its name; how Friday 13th became a cursed date; we are told to look up, to see, on weathervanes, atop archways, on gothic lamps, the Agnus Dei, the lamb of god—the Templars’ symbol. Every detail links to our quest.
Minutes later we spill through a gateway into the traffic-rush of the Strand, a blur of taxis and red double-deckers. Brian’s arms become a flurry, pointing up, to left and right, then above our heads, to a deluge of symbols linking the Templars to Freemasonry, and across the road to the law courts, the Old Bailey. “Dan Brown was summoned to Court 61 here, to defend himself,” says Brian. “Accused of plagiarism. The trial judge said The Da Vinci Code was, quote – ‘a thumping good read’. So he wasn’t biased. Brown won his case.”
For another hour we pursue The Da Vinci Code’s terse narrative, first to the chapel of Kings College London, then into Strand Lane (which conceals a link with David Copperfield, and Dickens, as a bonus for sleuths of literary London). Then it’s a headlong rush down the stairwell of Temple tube, where Robert and Sophie jump the barrier, pacing the platform.
And before we know it we’re whisked to Westminster, up into daylight, under the 4 o’clock bong of Big Ben. Around the corner at Westminster Hall, Brian points to where “the first traffic lights in the universe were erected back in 1868”. We presume he has checked all the other planets. But, The Da Vinci Code won’t wait.
Its dramatic denouement in Westminster Abbey – when the keystone spills its secret—is relived. And Brian throws in his own conundrum. How does a 1960s mural by Jean Cocteau in a hidden church off Leicester Square connect with Leonardo Da Vinci? He leaves this hanging, he’s whetted our appetites.
Just 10 minutes later, I’m on my way to solve the puzzle, I can’t help checking the street behind me for red-eyed albinos cloaked like monks. Or even Tom Hanks. Or possibly Brian, on his federal witness protection programme, loitering with intent. One can’t be too careful, after all.
Need to know
Getting there: EasyJet flies to London from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen from £46.98 return. Go to: www.easyjet.com
Accommodation: The Gore Hotel, Kensington. Doubles from £180 per night. Go to: www.gorehotel.com
What to do: Buses take you in 15 minutes from near the hotel to the Strand, close to Temple tube.Mysterious London & The Da Vinci Code tour: Thursday at 2pm from Temple tube (Circle & District lines). £7 adults (£5 conc). Under-15s free. Go to www.londonwalks.com or, to receive a leaflet, call 020 7624 3978.
